“You’re on. Meet me outside the Palmetto at eight thirty on the nose in your best dress. Some number that looks good in photographs, say.”
“Oh, you think you got a plan, boss lady?”
“Miss Kingsley,” I say, “we can’t miss.”
All right, so I like to manage things. I like to take charge of people’s affairs—it’s one of my many talents. Boss lady, Barbara called me, and what’s the matter with that? Someone has to be the boss, or nothing would get done. I’ve managed the careers of dozens of women—a few men, too—and nobody’s complained about the results, at least not to my face. The fact is, most people are too softhearted, or they lack a certain clarity of vision, or they don’t want to make mistakes, or—this is the big one—they’re afraid of what others will think of them. They don’t want to take that kind of responsibility. It’s hard work and requires you to make decisions people won’t like. But I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing like the satisfaction of a plan brought off to perfection, of knowing you’ve led your flock to greener pastures.
It would make a nice, neat story to say that I became this way because of my father dying when I was eleven years old, and my mother sort of absolving herself of any further parental responsibilities because she had her grief to contend with. But I’m afraid I’ve always been a managing person, the kind of girl who brings home animals and organizes the canned vegetables according to the alphabet and puts together the neighborhood stickball teams.
And there’s Iris. I was always protective of her, when we were growing up. There was the time we started at Chapin, a school far above our social standing as it then was, and while nobody dared to snub me they had no trouble snubbing Iris, so I spent that entire first year blackmailing girls to play with my sister and invite her to parties and that kind of thing. Iris never knew. Or when we used to summer with my grandparents in Glen Cove, Long Island, and Iris was afraid of every little thing, sailing and swimming—in the Sound, that is, instead of a nice safe swimming pool—and especially strangers.
Anyway, her tender heart was staggered when Daddy killed himself. Mother had discovered the body first thing in the morning, so there was a terrifying fuss of screaming and telephones and ambulance men. Harry was off prepping at Hotchkiss by then, so it was just the two of us kids, Iris and me. She started having these strange shivering fits, so I took her into our room and crawled into bed with her to keep her warm. In those days nobody told you what to do with news like that—grief like that. Maybe a doctor would give you a sleeping pill or something, but otherwise you were just supposed to swallow it whole and not bother anybody else with the awkwardness of your sorrow. Fine for somebody like me, but for Iris? So I just held her and stroked her hair—didn’t say a thing. In the morning she came to and drank a little milk that I fetched for her, and a week later she marched bravely into St. James Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue for the funeral, holding my hand. She wore the navy blue dress and coat I picked out for her at Bergdorf’s. I was so proud of her. On our backs, I felt the prurient gazes of all the assembled so-called mourners, and I just thought to myself, You will never understand what a wreck she was, only a week ago.
You know, I met a shrink at a party once who said I had a God complex, whatever that meant, and for a long time afterward our entire conversation made me indignant, whenever I thought about it. For the record, I don’t think I’m God, or even one of His archangels. Just a mortal woman doing her best with what’s entrusted to her care.
But I do understand the frustration God feels when He shows us the right way forward, time and again, and what do we poor mortals do? We go the opposite direction, almost to spite Him, and sure enough we come to grief.
Anyway, you can’t say Barbara Kingsley doesn’t follow my instructions to the letter. When the taxi screeches to a halt outside the Palmetto at eight thirty-two, out pops the most ravishing woman you’ve ever seen in your life, wearing a coat of white fox and a sequined dress that could bring sight to a blind man. I step forward and pay the driver myself, and he scoots right off. I turn back to gather my bevy of sirens and there stands Barbara, hands on hips, laughing her head off.
“All right, boss lady,” she says. “I think I see your plan. Where do I fit in?”
“Right at the front, Miss Kingsley.”
I won’t lie, it took me all afternoon and a couple of years’ worth of favors to round up a cast like that one. I won’t name any names, but you’ve heard of them. I take Barbara’s arm and proceed straight up to the ma?tre d’ at his elegant mahogany podium. “Reservation for eight, front row. Macallister party.”